Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemThe morning after : a novella based on a study of a drama performance exploring young people's views of teenage pregnancy( 2004)This thesis is in two parts. Firstly I describe my research, which centred on a Drama performance devised for the 2002 Monash Schools Drama Festival. The performance project was coordinated by myself, as the school Drama teacher, and involved twelve students from Years 9 and 10. The performance focused on the theme of teenage pregnancy and explored some of the difficulties a young girl encounters when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. The story created for the performance project then became the basis for the second part of this thesis, a novella - 'The Morning After'. As a practitioner teacher-researcher, I collected data through interviews with my students and observations of their work in drama as they created the storyline and constructed the performance for the Monash Drama Festival. Through the process of discussion and improvisation, students revealed their perceptions, life experiences, questions and concerns around the issue of teenage pregnancy. These insights were reflected in the play and then this data was analyzed, organized into themes, interpreted and transformed into the novella - The Morning After'. This study reveals a need for more effective forums for discussing sex education and teenage relationships and pregnancy with young people in schools. The Morning After' aims to preserve the story at the heart of the students' play by offering it in fictional form to other young people.
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ItemHide and seek: examining the relationship between student understanding and the drama devising process through the development of three senior secondary ensemble performances in drama( 2007)This thesis examines how a student's understanding of their world can be informed through the development of an ensemble performance in drama. It is a qualitative study that presents the findings of three groups in three comparative case studies in a single site. The teacher-researcher observed a year eleven drama class preparing a group performance task at the end of Unit Two Drama in the Victorian Certificate of Education. The research explored the development of student understanding through the ensemble performance by addressing connections with personal understanding, expression through drama understanding, the refining of understanding through the drama process and interaction with other group members and the teacher's contribution. It also uncovers the tension for the teacher in evaluating student outcomes in terms of VCE criteria at the expense of learning gained through process. This study suggests that student understanding can be expanded through making personal connections to stories from everyday life, opinions and beliefs and influences from the student world. The research explains that the group can build on these personal understandings using different interactive methods and formulates a 'toolkit' to assist the individual to participate effectively in the cultural context of the drama ensemble. Developing understanding through drama-making is described in terms of the movement between play, the common aesthetic and art; and through the benefits of expressing ideas in practice and embodied understanding. The final performance product is shown to contribute to the development of student understanding in two ways: through student considerations of the audience in their performance-making; and through the ways in which performance elements were employed by the students for expression and communication. The final performance was a culmination of the knowledge and skills that each individual had offered and the decisions of the group as it expressed a group understanding through dramatic form.
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ItemAn aesthetic framework for drama education( 1995)This study examines how the aesthetic is central to a conceptual framework in drama education. The main features of the framework are investigated and referred to as the Aesthetic Framework (AF). To accompany this framework the study proposes the development of an aesthetic consciousness for teachers working on the new Queensland Drama syllabus (BOSSSS, 1993). The focus of the study is on how the Aesthetic Framework (AF) manifests itself in classroom practice and how teachers and students describe their experiences of it. Central to the Aesthetic Framework is the development of a philosophical stance embracing artistic, educational, cultural and critical theories. Through the writings of Szatkowski, O'Neill Abbs, Willis, Giroux, Foucault, Eco, Lyotard, the study argues for different epistemologies to be explored within the drama curriculum to allow students to undergo other aesthetic experiences. The findings offer teachers a discussion about the success and failures of the strategies developed to implement the Framework in the classroom.
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ItemThe impact of the group dynamic in the drama classroom( 2004)This study investigated the impact of the group dynamic in the collaborative context of the drama classroom. Involved in the study were seventeen year nine and ten students (ages 14 to 15) enrolled in an elective subject "Community Drama" at a coeducational Secondary College in Melbourne, Australia. I spent a semester as a 'student' in the class integrally involved in all classroom activities. Literature in the field of Drama in Education mentions participants working in group formation but it appears that drama educators do not overtly incorporate group development theory in their teaching practice. The study explores the benefits of incorporating group development theory in the context of Drama in Education, and invites drama educators to consider explicitly using group development theory in their work with students and participants in their classrooms and workshops. The study focuses on the patterns of group development for this class. Using ethnographic methods, I set out to describe and interpret the patterns of meaning that informed the student's actions and made up the culture of the group. Participant observation techniques, interviews, audience and completion surveys were used as part of the data collection process to expose the theme of belonging that governed the behaviour of the class.
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ItemWatching the detectives: a study of arts criticism in a junior secondary drama classroom( 1999)The purpose of this study is to examine the place of arts criticism within a junior secondary drama curriculum and specifically within the researcher's own teaching practice. Through the adoption of a reflective practitioner stance, the researcher explores the implementation of strategies designed to increase students' understanding and use of arts criticism skills. During the data collection process, the focus of the research moves from the students' responses to the teaching strategies, to the researcher's investigation of her teaching practice in relation to these teaching strategies. Arts criticism is defined in this study as being a part of the aesthetic field; it involves students' spontaneous and considered responses to arts works. In this study, arts criticism is understood both as an event in itself, allowing students to make considered reflective responses to arts works, and as a tool that enables students to communicate their immediate aesthetic responses. The study explores the place of arts criticism within the aesthetic realm through the writing of Abbs, McDonald and McLean. It establishes that there are limited practical resources available for teaching arts criticism in a drama curriculum. The significance of the teacher's role in establishing arts criticism within a drama curriculum emerges from the data analysis. The importance of the teacher's choice of vocabulary in the development of effective arts criticism strategies is evident. The metaphor of the Drama Detective is found to offer the students a constructive way of becoming engaged in arts criticism activities. This study confirms that arts criticism is a vital of part of the drama curriculum and it suggests possible means for the drama teacher to incorporate arts criticism into their drama teaching practice with junior secondary students.
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ItemDrama in education: words into action( 1989)The senior years of education in Victorian schools will undergo significant changes as a result of the introduction of the new Victorian Certificate of Education in 1991. This study examines the ways in which the Victorian Certificate of Education will influence: the perceived purpose of schooling at this level, the method of developing curriculum, and the discipline of drama. The Study Design Drama is explored, in a hypothetical situation, in order to assess the efficacy of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Board's Study Structure Approach to curriculum construction. Focus is placed upon the question: Is it possible for the teacher to maintain ownership of the curriculum under the Victorian Certificate of Education?